Afghanistan 20 Years Later

@kcblitzkrieg

 They laid down their weapons. Is America to blame for this? 

Women & children will continue to be raped like they have been for decades. Is America to blame for this as well?

It wasn't pretty leaving Nam and it isn't pretty leaving Afghanistan. 

I'm just glad no more American blood will be splattered around that country anymore.

of course not          any suggestion to the contrary is ignorant

I don't argue with anything you said here.  The withdrawal process was a major blunder. This is going to be studied in the history books just like Saigon.  We massively underestimated the Afghan's army's ability and DESIRE to defend themselves.  We KNEW the Taliban was going to move in and take over and we drastically screwed the pooch on the timing of it.  

When you withdraw from an occupied foreign country the LAST thing you do is announce the withdrawal of military forces.  We did this FIRST.  That's all you need to know. 

This was JULY 3RD

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-vacates-key-afghan-base-pullout-target-now-78645560

WASHINGTON -- Nearly 20 years after invading Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and hunt down al-Qaida, the U.S. military has vacated its biggest airfield in the country, advancing a final withdrawal that the Pentagon says will be completed by the end of August.

President Joe Biden had instructed the Pentagon to complete the military withdrawal by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States, but the Pentagon now says it can finish the drawdown a little earlier. In fact, the drawdown is already largely completed and officials had said it could be wrapped up this weekend. But a number of related issues need to be worked out in coming weeks, including a new U.S. military command structure in Kabul and talks with Turkey on an arrangement for maintaining security at the Kabul airport, and so an official end to the pullout will not be announced soon.

The administration is meanwhile narrowing options for ensuring the safety of thousands of Afghans whose applications for special visas to come to the United States have yet to be approved. The administration has already said it’s willing to evacuate them to third countries pending their visa approvals but has yet to determine where. Officials said Friday that one possibility is to relocate them to neighboring countries in Central Asia where they could be protected from possible retaliation by the Taliban or other groups.

The White House and State Department have declined to comment on the numbers to be relocated or where they might go, but the foreign ministers of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were both in Washington this week and the subject of Afghan security was raised in meetings they held with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Kirby said that Austin on Friday approved a new command structure in Afghanistan to transition the U.S. military mission from warfighting to two new objectives — protecting a continuing U.S. diplomatic presence in Kabul and maintaining liaison with the Afghan military.

Austin's plan calls for the top commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Scott Miller, to transfer his combat authorities to the Florida-based head of U.S. Central Command, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, before relinquishing his command this month. Also, a two-star Navy admiral will head a U.S. Embassy-based military office, dubbed U.S. Forces Afghanistan-Forward, to oversee the new mission of providing security for the embassy and its diplomats.

A satellite military office based in Qatar and headed by a U.S. one-star general will be established to administer U.S. financial support for the Afghan military and police, plus maintenance support provided for Afghan aircraft from outside Afghanistan.

Miller met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Friday and, according to a Dari-language tweet by the presidential palace, the two discussed “continued U.S. assistance and cooperation with Afghanistan, particularly in supporting the defense and security forces.”

Bagram Airfield has been the epicenter of the war to oust the Taliban and hunt down the al-Qaida perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. At its peak in and around 2012, Bagram Airfield saw more than 100,000 U.S. troops pass through the massive compound barely an hour’s drive north of Kabul.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan's district administrator for Bagram, Darwaish Raufi, said the American departure was done overnight without any coordination with local officials, and as a result early Friday, dozens of local looters stormed through the unprotected gates before Afghan forces regained control.

JULY 3RD 

We had 2500 troops on the ground before this shit show began and now we have almost 7000 !!! 

Where is all of your fake outrage at more AMERICAN boots on the ground now trying to fix the completely preventable screw job!? 

Good point.  The Afghans themselves just surrendered.

" When you withdraw from an occupied foreign country the LAST thing you do is announce the withdrawal of military forces. We did this FIRST. That's all you need to know."

yep        history has duly recorded that rump opened his big mouth and announced he would withdraw all us forces by may 1

even negotiated a deal with our taliban enemies in regards to this withdrawal for may 1 and rump actually believes the taliban r good people who will now help the u.s. 'fight terrorism '

I would be disowned if my family saw me write stuff like this! Just awful! 

This much is evident to those who are not hamstrung by rightwing partisanship.

I previously stated that getting Afghan allies out of there before relinquishing control to the Taliban needed to be started months ago.

In truth, that SHOULD HAVE BEEN STARTED last year when TRUMP announced he was going to withdraw all troops by May 1, giving the Taliban a full year+ to prepare to conquer and takeover the Afghan forces.

But of course, trump failed. 

And now the POS is fingering all blame on the guy who whupped him in the last election.

Tucker says it much better than me.

yep            rump should have done so           but of course he FAILED

therefore it must b all joe bidens fault   

According to CNN, former defense secretary Esper said that Trump undermined taliban deal by pushing for premature withdrawal of US troops without taliban meeting conditions of deal.  In 2020 election year, Trump was desperate and reckless.  As a result, he failed to address chaos unfolding during his watch.  Taliban deal didn't bring peace.

We are lead by buffoons! They could not even secure a single runway!

Blame, deflect, cover & hide..... the putz's in here have the playbook down better than this Administration. 

Bots...bots & bots.  That is the only sane & logical conclusion I've come to with regards to the clown show's posting around here.  No one can answer a simple logical question when posed to them.  So bots they must be...

trump's plan. 

There was nothing that I, or anyone else, saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days," Joint Chiefs Chairman Milley says, adding intelligence showed "multiple scenarios" were possible, including a rapid Taliban takeover.

Seriously??? Really??? Did you have certain assurances from  the Afghan government?

What a clusterfuck!

Nearly all of the American politicians supported the war in Afghanistan, nearly all of the pundits in mainstream media supported the war in Afghanistan, nearly all of the generals, nearly all of the “experts”, and nearly all of the American people. 

The war cost $300,000,000 tax dollars every day for 7,300 days and the tax payers got nothing in return. 

@I_Need_A_Detox

 Our government has pissed away tax payer money for decades.

That's not news. 

That’s not news? 

That should be the biggest takeaway from the entire fiasco. 

@I_Need_A_Detox

 The biggest takeaway is not the money lost but rather the lives lost for absolutely nothing.

That's one of the many differences between you & I.

$300,000,000 a day for 20 years could save far more than 2,300 American lives. 

Talking about the money would put the spotlight on the way politicians spend tax dollars and no democrat would want to do that. 

Roughly 12,000 Americans have been killed in Chicago alone since 2001.